It might be fair to say that many twenty-something Taiwanese grew up on a diet of manga, the Japanese-style cartoons. There aren't many in this age group who haven't been ardent fans of Doraemon, Atom Boy, Slamdunk or Chibi Maruko at some stage. This includes many young artist. Image -- Beyond the Comics, (密聚 -- 漫畫外的漫畫) shows the various ways manga or other kinds of comics have influenced and inspired the works of artists born in the 1970s. None of the exhibits on display at the Huashan Art District are comics in form but their aesthetics and artistic expression are quintessentially that of the comicbook or cartoon.
"Comics' humor and light-hearted satire is exactly what Taiwanese [society] badly needs," said Huei-min (
PHOTOS COURTESY OF HUEI-MIN
"Taiwanese seriously lack a sense of humor. ... It would be nice to blend a little comedy with contemporary art to create works that are humorous and sarcastic without being offensive," Huei-min said in an interview with the Taipei Times.
PHOTO COURTESY OF HUEI-MIN
She therefore teamed up with eight other artists to present a total of 14 works.
Wei Zi-bin's (
Huei-min's installation of her photos, which extend along three walls, is a humorous comment on a Taiwanese girls' fascination with "fake happiness and beauty." A few years back, Huei-min was just like them. Out of narcissist desire to preserve the image of her youth, she posed for several "studio photo" albums, a popular service in which the client can dress herself up like a film star to have professional photographers take dreamy photos of her. She placed these photos, in which she was dressed as a bride, a Japanese doll, a princess, a sexy carwash girl and many other personae that seem to have walked right out of girly manga, in tacky flowery frames.
"People in Taiwanese society ... seem unwilling to express their true self. They would rather make up something that's pretty but fake," said Huei-min, who placed one of the photos in a frame that reads "Be Yourself" to create a sense of irony.
Other artists involved in the exhibition include Huang Lan-ya (黃蘭雅) and Chen Shi-chiang (陳世強), who are both attracting attention in the contemporary arts scene. While based on comics, the interest of all the works on display go beyond this narrow field, and provide a glimpse of a significant trend in Taiwan's contemporary art.
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